Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0181/01819.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 23KB | 362 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01819}
$Pretitle{231}
$Title{Iraq
Chapter 3C.   Agriculture}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Scott Mason}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{land
production
government
iraq
percent
water
hectares
euphrates
tons
total}
$Date{1989}
$Log{Figure 7.*0181901.scf
}
Country:     Iraq
Book:        Iraq, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Scott Mason
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1989

Chapter 3C.   Agriculture

[See Figure 7.: Land Use.]

     Since the beginning of recorded time, agriculture has been the primary
economic activity of the people of Iraq. In 1976, agriculture contributed
about 8 percent of Iraq's total GDP, and it employed more than half the total
labor force. In 1986, despite a ten-year Iraqi investment in agricultural
development that totaled more than US$4 billion, the sector still accounted
for only 7.5 percent of total GDP, a figure that was predicted to decline. In
1986 agriculture continued to employ a significant portion--about 30
percent--of Iraq's total labor force. Part of the reason the agricultural
share of GDP remained small was that the sector was overwhelmed by expansion
of the oil sector, which boosted total GDP.

     Large year-to-year fluctuations in Iraqi harvests, caused by variability
in the amount of rainfall, made estimates of average production problematic,
but statistics indicated that the production levels for key grain crops
remained approximately stable from the 1960s through the 1980s, with yield
increasing while total cultivated area declined. Increasing Iraqi food imports
were indicative of agricultural stagnation. In the late 1950s, Iraq was
self-sufficient in agricultural production, but in the 1960s it imported about
15 percent of its food supplies, and by the 1970s it imported about 33 percent
of its food. By the early 1980s, food imports accounted for about 15 percent
of total imports, and in 1984, according to Iraqi statistics, food imports
comprised about 22 percent of total imports. Many experts expressed the
opinion that Iraq had the potential for substantial agricultural growth, but
restrictions on water supplies, caused by Syrian and Turkish dam building on
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, might limit this expansion.

Water Resources

     Iraq has more water than most Middle Eastern nations, which led to the
establishment of one of the world's earliest and most advanced civilizations.
Strong, centralized governments--a phenomenon known as "hydraulic
despotism"--emerged because of the need for organization and for technology in
order to exploit the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Archaeologists believe that
the high point in the development of the irrigation system occurred about 500
A.D., when a network of irrigation canals permitted widespread cultivation
that made the river basin into a regional granary (see Ancient Mesopotamia,
ch. 1). Having been poorly maintained, the irrigation and drainage canals had
deteriorated badly by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the Mongols
destroyed what remained of the system (see The Mongol Invasion, ch. 1).

     About one-fifth of Iraq's territory consists of farmland. About half of
this total cultivated area is in the northeastern plains and mountain valleys,
where sufficient rain falls to sustain agriculture. The remainder of the
cultivated land is in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which
receive scant rainfall and rely instead on water from the rivers. Both rivers
are fed by snowpack and rainfall in eastern Turkey and in northwest Iran. The
rivers' discharge peaks in March and in May, too late for winter crops and too
early for summer crops. The flow of the rivers varies considerably every year.
Destructive flooding, particularly of the Tigris, is not uncommon, and some
scholars have placed numerous great flood legends, including the biblical
story of Noah and the ark, in this area. Conversely, years of low flow make
irrigation and agriculture difficult.

     Not until the twentieth century did Iraq make a concerted effort to
restore its irrigation and drainage network and to control seasonal flooding.
Various regimes constructed several large dams and river control projects,
rehabilitated old canals, and built new irrigation systems. Barrages were
constructed on both the Tigris and the Euphrates to channel water into natural
depressions so that floods could be controlled. It was also hoped that the
water could be used for irrigation after the rivers peaked in the spring, but
the combination of high evaporation from the reservoirs and the absorption of
salt residues in the depressions made some of the water too brackish for
agricultural use. Some dams that created large reservoirs were built in the
valleys of tributaries of the Tigris, a measure that diminished spring
flooding and evened out the supply of water over the cropping season. When the
Euphrates was flowing at an exceptionally low level in 1984, the government
was able to release water stored in reservoirs to sustain farmers.

     In 1988 barrages or dam reservoirs existed at Samarra, Dukan, Darband,
and Khan on the Tigris and Habbaniyah on the Euphrates. Two new dams on the
Tigris at Mosul and Al Hadithah, named respectively the Saddam and Al
Qadisiyah, were on the verge of completion in 1988. Furthermore, a
Chinese-Brazilian joint venture was constructing a US$2 billion dam on the
Great Zab River, a Tigris tributary in northeastern Iraq. Additional dams were
planned for Badush and Fathah, both on the Tigris. In Hindiyah on the
Euphrates and in Ash Shinafiyah on the Euphrates, Chinese contractors were
building a series of barrages.

     Geographic factors contributed to Iraq's water problems. Like all rivers,
the Tigris and the Euphrates carry large amounts of silt downstream. This silt
is deposited in river channels, in canals, and on the flood plains. In Iraq,
the soil has a high saline content. As the water table rises through flooding
or through irrigation, salt rises into the topsoil, rendering agricultural
land sterile. In addition, the alluvial silt is highly saline. Drainage thus
becomes very important; however, Iraq's terrain is very flat. Baghdad, for
example, although 550 kilometers from the Persian Gulf, is only 34 meters
above sea level. This slight gradient makes the plains susceptible to flooding
and, although it facilitates irrigation, it also hampers drainage. The flat
terrain also provides relatively few sites for dams. Most important, Iraq lies
downstream from both Syria and Turkey on the Euphrates River and downstream
from Turkey on the Tigris River. In the early 1970s, both Syria and Turkey
completed large dams on the Euphrates and filled vast reservoirs. Iraqi
officials protested the sharp decrease in the river's flow, claiming that
irrigated areas along the Euphrates in Iraq dropped from 136,000 hectares to
10,000 hectares from 1974 to 1975.

     Despite cordial relations between Iraq and Turkey in the late 1980s, the
issue of water allocation continued to cause friction between the two
governments. In 1986 Turkey completed tunnels to divert an estimated one-fifth
of the water from the Euphrates into the Ataturk Dam reservoir. The Turkish
government reassured Iraq that in the long run downstream flows would revert
to normal. Iraqi protests were muted, because Iraq did not yet exploit
Euphrates River water fully for irrigation, and the government did not wish to
complicate its relationship with Turkey in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War.

Land Tenure and Agrarian Reform

     Iraq's system of land tenure and inefficient government implementation of
land reform contributed to the low productivity of farmers and the slow growth
of the agricultural sector. Land rights had evolved over many centuries,
incorporating laws of many cultures and countries. The Ottoman Land Code of
1858 attempted to impose order by establishing categories of land and by
requiring surveys and the registration of land holdings. By World War I, only
limited registration had been ac